Associate Art Director

Allied Global Marketing•Los Angeles, CA

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

Allied is looking for a Los Angeles-based Associate Art Director to join our creative team, with an immediate focus on a major multi-market location-based entertainment account and opportunities to support other entertainment, culture, hospitality and consumer work across the agency. This is a hands-on art direction and design role spanning integrated campaigns, paid media, social, CRM, OOH, print, video, motion and other marketing needs. The right person should be a strong designer who is comfortable developing larger campaign ideas and then personally carrying those ideas through static creative across channels, formats and markets, while also helping shape video and motion executions. This person will take on meaningful day-to-day ownership of the visual creative, working within broader creative direction while independently making design decisions, developing executions and keeping the account moving. They should be comfortable art directing others when needed, but this is not a management-only role. We expect them to be actively designing. They should also understand creative from a paid media perspective, including how an idea needs to adapt by placement, audience and objective, and how to deliver accurately against a wide range of media specs and formats.

Requirements

Strong Design Craft: Excellent typography, layout, image selection, compositing and campaign design skills.
Relevant Experience: 5+ years of design and art direction experience, ideally within an agency or fast-moving consumer brand environment.
Hands-On Design Experience: A portfolio demonstrating that you can personally take creative from concept through polished final static executions, not simply oversee the work of other designers.
Concept and Execution: Comfort moving between larger campaign thinking and detailed day-to-day design execution.
Integrated and Paid Media Experience: Experience developing creative across integrated campaigns, paid media, digital and social.
Media Literacy: A strong understanding of how creative works within paid media, including placements, formats, audience needs and campaign objectives.
Spec-Driven Production: Experience working across high volumes of creative with detailed media specs, versions and production requirements.
Relevant Category Experience: Entertainment, location-based entertainment, hospitality, retail or major consumer-brand experience.
Brand and IP Experience: Experience working within established brand or entertainment IP guidelines and adapting across different visual worlds.
Design Tools: Advanced Photoshop, Illustrator and Figma skills. InDesign is a plus.
Video and Motion Capability: Strong understanding of how ideas translate into motion and video, including concepting, storyboarding, pacing and visual direction. Hands-on editing, animation or motion-design skills are a strong plus, but the role will also work with dedicated video and motion resources.
Team Direction: Experience providing clear visual direction and feedback to designers, production artists, freelancers or other creative specialists.
Creative Judgment: Ability to independently make strong day-to-day art and design decisions, interpret feedback and recognize when something requires senior creative involvement.
Organization and Judgment: Exceptional organization and attention to detail, with the ability to manage overlapping assignments, markets, versions and deadlines independently.

Nice To Haves

The strongest candidate is likely an Associate Art Director or highly experienced Senior Designer already operating at the next level.
They should first and foremost be a strong, hands-on designer. They can help develop the larger campaign idea, but they are equally comfortable opening the files and doing the design themselves.
Once the broader creative direction is established, they should be able to take ownership of the day-to-day visual development and carry that direction through a large volume of polished static creative.
They should understand how creative needs to function within a media plan, stay highly organized across placements, specs, markets and versions, and know when to make a decision themselves versus bringing senior creative leadership back into the conversation.
They should also be comfortable shaping motion and video creative, contributing hands-on when that matches their skill set and partnering with dedicated video and motion resources when it does not.
They do not need to be the primary client lead, but they should be comfortable representing the visual direction, leading an internal review or stepping into a client conversation when needed.
This role is less suited to someone whose experience is primarily brand identity, one-off campaign design or creative management without significant hands-on design responsibility.

Responsibilities

Design and Art Direct Static Creative: Personally design campaign creative across paid social, digital, OOH, print, CRM and other channels while maintaining a high level of visual craft.
Develop Integrated Campaign Creative: Help develop larger campaign ideas and visual directions, then carry those ideas through specific executions across channels and markets.
Own Day-to-Day Visual Direction: Take established campaign and creative direction and independently carry it through ongoing creative development, making strong design decisions without requiring senior creative involvement at every step.
Create for Paid Media: Develop new hooks, layouts, offers, CTAs and variations while understanding the role different placements play within the media plan.
Build files for print production: Adapt concepts and looks for print media, including print collateral and out of home. Understanding of print rules/methods a plus.
Direct Creative Across Media Specs: Ensure campaign ideas translate effectively across different sizes, aspect ratios, formats, platforms and technical requirements, with strong attention to detail.
Create for Entertainment and Experiences: Build creative around entertainment titles, attractions, destinations, products and other specific reasons for audiences to engage.
Work Across Markets and Brands: Adapt creative across multiple locations, audiences and established brand or entertainment IP guidelines while maintaining consistency across the broader campaign.
Build Flexible Creative Systems: Develop campaign structures that can support regular creative refreshes, new offers, changing content and high-volume versioning without requiring every execution to start from scratch.
Think Social-First When Appropriate: Develop creative that feels natural within social environments, using platform behaviors and content formats while staying connected to the broader campaign idea.
Create and Art Direct Motion and Video: Develop concepts, storyboards and visual direction for motion and video creative, working hands-on where your skill set allows and partnering with dedicated video and motion resources for more specialized editing, animation and production.
Partner Across Disciplines: Work closely with copy, strategy, media, account, CRM, video, motion and production teams so the creative responds to the message, placement, audience and campaign objective.
Guide Production and QA: Direct designers, production artists, freelancers and other creative specialists when needed while maintaining quality, consistency and accuracy across final deliverables.
Step In When Needed: Lead internal creative reviews and confidently represent the visual direction in client or cross-functional conversations when senior creative leadership is unavailable.